The mother of a teenage girl who was groomed by a group of predatory men, plied with drugs and alcohol and forced to have sex with several men against her will, has warned that the same thing "could happen to any family".

Manchester crown court jailed nine men last month for abusing the woman's daughter, Ellie – not her real name – when she was 14. The perpetrators were convicted of sexual activity with a child, controlling a child prostitute, facilitating child prostitution and paying for sexual services with a child and were jailed for between six months and seven years.

Speaking for the first time since the convictions, the girl's mother, Sally, praised Greater Manchester police and the Crown Prosecution Service for supporting the family and securing the prosecution. She said that a charity called the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping , from which the family had received invaluable support, was supporting hundreds of families in similar situations.

Ellie went missing twice from her home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, in February 2008. When officers spoke to her in Rusholme, Manchester, she told them she had been sexually exploited by a number of men while she was missing.

Over a series of separate hearings and trials, Manchester crown court heard how Asad Hassan had targeted Ellie in Rochdale town centre. He took her to a nightclub, where she was plied with vodka and taken to a flat with two other men, Mohammed Basharat and Mohammed Atif. They were all later convicted of sexually exploiting her.

A few days later she travelled to Manchester, where she met another man, Aftab Khan, who also gave her alcohol and drugs before forcing her to have sex with several men for money.

The girl's family are articulate middle-class professionals, who have older children. "What happened to us as a family is beyond anything we could have imagined or anticipated," Sally told the Guardian. "It is completely off the scale of ordinary experience. People talk about problems with teenagers growing up but what happened to our daughter is so extreme we could never have been prepared for anything like this, which is one of the things that makes it so hard to deal with.

"This can happen to anyone, to any family, any child, from any social background and any race or gender."

The first sign anything was amiss was when her daughter became secretive, Sally said. "One of the hardest things was being taken seriously in the early days because of an assumption that this was a normal teenage rebellion."

They noticed mood changes and secrecy and mobile phone numbers on pieces of paper. "We'd received phone calls for her from males we didn't recognise and sometimes the number was withheld. There were lots of worrying things that didn't quite add up and make sense." The family later found discarded mobile phone sim cards in her bedroom.

When they asked their daughter about the men, she was dismissive of their concerns.

"This is a very typical way in which men groom young girls," Sally said. "They target adolescent girls who may appear mature physically but are emotionally immature."

Ellie was smoking and using cannabis and vodka; her parents could not understand how she was paying for it. She became increasingly disconnected from her family. "We felt like we lost our relationship with her and we couldn't talk to her about things. She was closed down emotionally but we would talk about ordinary day-to-day things and it became very superficial."

They contacted social services, but the initial opinion was that Ellie was not particularly at risk. "There is a great deal of emphasis on children's rights, competence and autonomy," Sally said. "With this kind of grooming, the child is very much out of control as they are being controlled by somebody else and the power is always with the predator."

Eventually the couple persuaded social services to hold a child protection meeting about their daughter, from which they were to be excluded from "which was absurd as we'd approached them with the information." There was a shift in their attitude, as her parents fought for her. "Their attitude changed and they became allies attempting to find ways of protecting her. However, the system we are working within failed her."

"It was a nightmare, a complete nightmare," Sally said of the two occasions her daughter went missing from home. On the second occasion she went missing, Ellie was gone for 12 days, during which her family were frantic. "I can't describe how frightening it is to know your child is missing and you don't know whether they are alive or dead."

During this time, Sally searched Manchester's red-light district late at night while her husband waited at home by the phone.

Eventually Ellie escaped her abusers by flagging down a passing couple in the street, later going to the police and giving evidence at two separate trials. A third took place without her testimony as medical experts said she was not able to continue.

Superintendent Paul Savill, who led the inquiry, said the issue was about the vulnerability of adolescents.

"Khan was, in my mind, on the lookout for vulnerable girls," he said. "While these girls are available he will approach them and play on these vulnerabilities and ply them with gifts." As a result of the abuse, Savill described how the child's self-esteem plummets and they become trapped in a cycle of exploitation.

He said Ellie had been treated like a commodity; beaten, threatened and sexually exploited. "These men took advantage of her vulnerability with no regard for her wellbeing."

Sally said that, although the perpetrators were all Asian, it was not a racial issue. "I think there is a cultural issue here, but a more accurate reflection is the mainstreaming of pornography and the objectification of women and young girls."

Barnardo's is calling for all local authorities to take action on child sexual exploitation, including undertaking a risk assessment, providing or funding specialist support in sexual exploitation services and ensuring those working with children and young people are trained to recognise the signs and take action if they think a young person is at risk.

Ellie, who is now 17, said in a statement: "These people exploit young girls, introduce them to prostitution, feed them drugs and alcohol and tell them they love them. I know this because it has happened to me and it has changed my life enormously. I just hope that people will be more aware of this now and will be able to prevent this from happening to other vulnerable young girls."

Rachel Loise, a parent support officer at Crop, said: "This violent sexual exploitation not only ruins the lives of the children and young people; the effects on the whole family are devastating – on both parents and siblings. And this can happen to any child from any family."